The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing long force sensors with a repeated design pattern using screen printing or other repetitive printing technology. Sensors produced according to the method do not have any practical limitation on length.
Such sensor technology is desirable in situations in which a lengthy sensor construction is needed. For example, in a tennis court, it is desirable to automate line calling, which is the detection as to whether a tennis ball impacts the ground at an in-bounds location or an out-of-bounds location. Flat force detecting sensors may be utilized at the boundaries to make a determination of the point of ball impact. An exemplary use of such sensors is described in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/917,802, herein incorporated by reference.
Because of the tennis court size, sensors have to be manufactured extremely long (up to 60′ long). In principle, one could simply create and utilize sensors having a length of, e.g., 3′ or, and then arrange such sensors next to one another all the way along the various boundary lines. However, the sensors manufactured with various embodiments of the present inventive technology provide numerous advantages.
During the installation of such flat sensors, one cannot avoid overlapping the sensors in order to provide a sensing area all the way along the lines. This overlapping leads to surface unevenness. The primary reason for this is that along the perimeter of the sensor, there is typically an area which is not sensitive and which is devoted for adhesive or waterproofing. For short sensors, the overlaps become numerous.
Additionally, each sensor area requires a cable connecting it to a computer. Again, in a short sensor configuration and considering the size of a tennis court, use of short sensors would require a tremendous amount of cables running across the area, which would make the system very complex, unreliable, and very expensive, relative to a system in which long sensors are used.